Kenya Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Kenya snapshot
Appeal highlights
- The number of food-insecure people in Kenya was approximately 2.8 million as of July 2023, down from 4.4 million people in February 2023 due to hydrological recovery from the drought. However, the number of children aged 6–59 months requiring treatment for wasting had only decreased slightly, from 970,214 in February to 945,610 in July, because of the cumulative adverse effects of the prolonged drought on food security, on water, sanitation and hygiene capacities and on health status. Of those children requiring treatment, 216,794 are severely wasted.
- UNICEF will support community-led emergency preparedness and response efforts to provide timely life-saving humanitarian interventions, while enhancing links between humanitarian and development programmes to strengthen government systems and enhance resilience.
- In 2024, UNICEF requires $44.7 million to respond with critical life-saving and protective interventions for the most vulnerable girls, boys, women and men in Kenya's Arid and Semi-Arid Lands, in urban informal settlements and in refugee settlements that are affected by the country's slow recovery from the severe drought in the Horn of Africa. The difficult conditions are exacerbated by the high cost of living, El Niño-induced flooding, disease outbreaks and refugee influx.
Key planned targets
320,980 children and women accessing primary health care
162,596 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
109,497 children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
349,990 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The severe drought in the Horn of Africa from 2020 to 2023 has hindered access to food, income and safe water in Kenya's Arid and Semi-Arid Lands.
Approximately 90 per cent of open water sources in Kenya had dried up by March 2023. The March to May (MAM) rains brought hydrological recovery, with open water sources recharging up to 70–100 per cent of their capacities. However, only 35–50 per cent of households treat drinking water; fewer than 50 per cent have handwashing facilities with soap; latrine coverage is below 50 per cent; and open defecation is at 40 per cent. This increases the risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
By mid-September 2023, 12,107 cholera cases had been reported in Kenya in 27 counties (1.6 per cent case fatality rate). Thirty-three per cent of cases were among children under 10 years of age. Approximately 60 per cent of cases were reported during the MAM rains, attributed to contaminated water sources and poor hygiene practices. As of September 2023, eight polio cases and 1,244 measles cases had been reported.
As of July 2023, approximately 2.8 million people were food-insecure, down from 4.4 million people in February 2023. However, below-average milk and food production are expected in 2024 due to the cumulative effects of five failed rains seasons, and high livestock mortality will significantly slow drought recovery. Additionally, high food and fuel prices pushed the inflation rate to 6.9 per cent in June 2023.
The number of children aged 6–59 months requiring treatment for wasting only slightly decreased from 970,214 in February 2023 to 945,610 in July 2023, due to the cumulative effects of the drought on food security, WASH and health status, with 216,794 children severely wasted.
There was a reported increase in child protection and gender-based violence cases in the drought-affected counties, including school dropouts (29 per cent), teen pregnancies, neglect, female genital mutilation and child marriage (66 per cent) affecting adolescent girls.
As of the end of June 2023, Kenya was hosting 623,865 refugees and asylum-seekers (83 per cent women and children), up from 573,508 on 31 December 2022, an increase due to insecurity and the Horn of Africa drought. The refugee population includes 10,536 unaccompanied and separated children (4,352 girls and 6,184 boys).
The El Niño-enhanced rains expected between October 2023 and January 2024 may lead to destruction of WASH, health and education infrastructure, as well as disease outbreaks in 33 counties at risk of flooding. Around 2 million people could be affected by floods and landslides, with up to 200,000 people potentially displaced. Use of schools as displacement centres will affect access to schooling.
UNICEF’s strategy
Working closely with county governments and implementing partners, UNICEF will support community-led life-saving and protection interventions by employing social mobilization approaches. Implementation of integrated health and nutrition outreach to the most affected communities will improve access to basic health services to children and women.
UNICEF will work through civil society partners to deliver integrated services to the affected population, ensuring close collaboration with county governments for effective service delivery, and leveraging the expertise of local women-led and youth organizations to enhance interventions for children and women.
UNICEF’s approach is child-friendly and provides holistic integrated support for children, caregivers and parents by providing complementary interventions. These will include referrals to additional direct assistance and working with other sectors through community volunteers and local organizations.
Communities will be engaged and sensitized to the effects of drought and floods and provided with information on where to access health services. Messages will promote disease prevention through sanitation and hygiene. Hygiene promotion efforts will also focus on increasing access to sanitation and hygiene facilities in households, schools and health facilities through community mobilization and awareness.
UNICEF’s programming and advocacy to remove barriers to accessing services will foster meaningful participation of persons with disabilities; girls and boys; women; and their representative organizations. Data will be disaggregated by disability, age and sex in all sectors to monitor inclusion. The participation of people of varying age groups, notably children and adolescents, will be ensured through social and behaviour change and accountability to affected people approaches . UNICEF will receive community feedback and concerns and respond to these through government and implementing partner structures.
UNICEF will continue to strengthen subnational government systems throughout the humanitarian response and will link this to ongoing development programmes to build more resilient subnational government capacities. In collaboration with key United Nations partners, UNICEF will facilitate county government planning, resource mobilization and budgeting processes so they are able to provide critical services addressing future climate shocks, focusing on the scale-up of resilience programmes.
UNICEF will provide technical support to national social protection systems to strengthen the disbursement of emergency-triggered, scaled-up cash transfers, as well as financial support for emergency cash assistance for the most vulnerable beneficiaries.
The risk-informed approach and inclusion of minority and vulnerable groups (including children, women and persons with disabilities) will be supported through development of legal and policy frameworks for disaster risk management.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in Kenya; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.